Senator Richard S. Madaleno, Jr. Washington Birthday Address Monday, February 20, 2017
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SENATOR RICHARD S. MADALENO, JR. WASHINGTON BIRTHDAY ADDRESS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2017 Tonight I want to tell you a tale of two Washingtons: one about George Washington, and one about the creation of the city that bears his name and is such a large part of so many of our lives today. The two tales tell the story of Washington’s vision for the future and his quest of a legacy that would unite the nation and establish a grand capital city to rival London and Paris - a new Rome to enlighten the world. George Washington was a person of immense talent. He was a charismatic leader who almost single-handily kept the Continental Army together through the Revolutionary War by the sheer force of his will. George Washington was also big dreamer. Like many of his contemporaries, he had a vision of an American nation stretching far to the west. A vision that was simply too big for a series of small colonies constrained by distant British masters. He possessed grand ambitions to be successful in government and business. From his first trip to the west as an officer in the British army, he sought out land to own and develop. His desires for wealth and his love of this area led him to be an outspoken advocate of the Potomac Valley and an active participant in various schemes to improve the river. He consistently argued for policies and plans that would grow the fledgling American economy. Washington’s dreams also often blinded him to the nightmare of slavery. His many accomplishments would have been simply impossible without his ownership of fellow Americans and their forced labor on his estate and on so many of his projects. The tale of the two Washingtons starts right here, in the Old Senate Chamber, in 1781. Following the big victory at Yorktown and the surrender of a sizeable portion of the British forces in North America, General Washington travelled to Philadelphia to report to the Continental Congress on the future of the war. His journey took him through Annapolis, where, over three days of festivities, his stunning victory was celebrated. The members of this legislature were so taken by his visit that the day after his departure, the House of Delegates directed Governor Thomas Sim Lee to commemorate the occasion with the installation of the General’s portrait for permanent display in the State House. Governor Lee contracted with Maryland-native Charles Wilson Peale to prepare the portrait. Peale was an ardent revolutionary himself who greatly admired Washington. Peale thought a simple portrait would be an insufficient honor to such a great hero. Instead, he painted an enormous painting depicting the moment of victory at Yorktown featuring Washington, Lafayette, and Marylander Charles Tilghman. As it would take Peale nearly three years to finish the work, it was not ready for Washington’s return to this chamber a year later to resign his commission as commander in chief. After leaving the army, Washington returned to Mount Vernon and resumed his efforts to foster development along the Potomac River. Washington, like many Virginians and Marylanders, believed the Potomac was the best route to establish a transportation connection to the west. He and other leading local politicians, who also happened to be the leading landowners, envisioned a series of canals that would make the Potomac accessible from Georgetown all the way to the Ohio River via one of its tributaries. With this in mind, George Washington would use his return to the State House the following December for the public unveiling of Peale’s masterpiece, again in this very chamber, to lobby the General Assembly to support his new canal plan. In his first foray back into public life, Washington would spend a week in Annapolis cajoling our predecessors to charter the Patowmack Canal Company. Working with his Maryland partners, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll, and Samuel Chase (whose portraits adorn our current chamber), he got the charter approved and secured a $3,333 appropriation (roughly $2 million in current dollars) for the project. Washington saw this as an excellent business proposition for himself and an essential investment in tying the western territories to the east coast. He worried that the lack of easy westward transportation connections would push the Northwest Territories back into European hands. To further this goal, with his partners, he successfully pushed Maryland and Virginia to establish a free trade zone along the Potomac and laid out a series of small canals alternating on sides of the river to get around the biggest natural obstacles like Great Falls and Little Falls. Washington thought the Maryland/Virginia free trade agreement was a model for the rest of the country. He was a leading proponent of a free trade convention of the states that was held here in Annapolis in 1786. When only twelve representatives from six states made it in time for the convention (even Maryland failed to appoint representatives), the delegates agreed to try again the following year in Philadelphia with more time to assemble the states and with a much bigger agenda. The Philadelphia Convention, chaired by Washington, would result in a new constitution that made interstate trade the sole responsibility of Congress and that envisioned a ten- mile square federal district to house the capital outside the jurisdiction of any single state. The capital had been bouncing between various towns since congress fled unpaid soldiers demonstrating in Philadelphia in 1783. The governor of Pennsylvania sympathized with the soldiers and refused pleas from Congress for protection. Understandably, Congress wanted a federal district as insurance against fickle governors loyal more to their constituents than the federal government. Following the ratification of the Constitution, our predecessors seized on the opportunity of gaining the national capital and adopted a measure stating “it is in the interest of this state to hold out every invitation, as an inducement to congress to fix their permanent residence within the limits of this state...and that as the fixing upon the banks of the Patowmack will be equally to the advantage of this state as that of Virginia...[Maryland] ought to share in the expenses which may be necessary in the accomplishment of this object. ...The proposition of Virginia ought to be acceded to, and [Maryland] should pass [a law] promising an advance of $72,000...to be applied in such manner as congress shall direct towards erecting public buildings.” Little did they know that this grant would bring the biggest return on investment of any economic development incentive package in our state’s history. However, the Potomac plan faced stiff competition from proposals by Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and South Carolina. Even Maryland was divided with many merchants favoring Baltimore as our state’s preferred location. Building a national economy and establishing a new capital would dominate the debate in the new congress and the debate in Washington’s first cabinet. After roaming between various towns, Congress had settled into New York City in 1785 and had stayed. Now President, George Washington moved to New York, as did the new Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and the newly elected Representative James Madison, who was the de facto majority leader. They were joined in the leadership of the new government by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. By then Hamilton had become one of New York’s most important citizens. Most people believed Hamilton wanted to keep the capital in New York permanently, but he had much bigger plans to accomplish. Many of the northern states were struggling to repay their wartime debts. Debt payments exceeded what most states brought in in annual revenues. Continued hostility with Great Britain had reduced trade for northern businesses, and the new constitution had eliminated state taxes on interstate commerce. This debt load threatened to bankrupt states just as a new national government was taking shape. The slave labor enabled agricultural economies of the southern states to fare much better during this time. Most southern states had paid off their debts, and their congressional representatives were not interested in bailing out their northern counterparts and their city-dwelling residents. This idea was especially galling to the Virginian aristocrats The assumption of unpaid northern state debts by the national government would mean higher taxes for their constituents – a risky proposition for any politician looking to win reelection. To most Southern members of Congress, meeting in New York City was a significant inconvenience. It was far from home and difficult for them to keep up their slave- dependent lifestyle. Washington and his fellow Virginians struggled in their daily lives with fewer household slaves. Favorite slave cooks and servants were exposed to a vastly different world and many free African Americans. The slaveholders were fearful of their human property slipping off on a boat or up river to freedom. When a divided Congress selected a site on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania for the new federal capital district, the defeated Southerners were even more dismayed as Pennsylvania had enacted an abolition law freeing any slave in the state in residence for more than 90 days. Their pampered days with their favorite slaves would be over. Hamilton seized upon their anxiety and discomfort to offer a compromise that would reverberate through American history. On the evening of June 20 th , 1790, Jefferson hosted Hamilton and Madison for a private dinner to finalize a grand bargain to settle both the so-called “assumption question” and the “residency question”. Hamilton offered the votes of the northern members for a change in the ‘residency’ of the capital. He proposed a site on the Potomac in Maryland, long preferred by and quite financially beneficial to President Washington, in exchange for Madison’s commitment of southern votes for his debt assumption plan.